My honest opinion of Destruction: It svcks.

Lack of actual scaling, low damage to cast cost ratios on the higher level spells, and Impact ruin it.

The lack of scaling in Destruction puzzles me. I would have preferred the Novice, Apprentice, etc mastery perks to make the spells cost half magicka and make spells of that tier scale with the player.

I would also like either higher damage or lower cost for the higher level spells, the former being the best course of action in my opinion. Of course, introducing scaling might make this unnecessary.

Impact makes Destruction boring, because it just becomes a boring stunfest. I would like it to be flat out removed, but since that isn;t happening, reducing the stun chance to 15, maybe 10% would be a great change.

As for the "use alchemy/enchanting!" argument, I counter with this;

Let's consider Alchemy/Enchanting a mage's equivalent to Smithing for a warrior. Many say "Destruction is fine! You just have to use enchanting/alchemy to use it!". Let's look back at that warrior. Let's say he doesn't Smith/improve his gear. Is he still very effective? Yep, he can still cut guys in half just as easy. Lets look at a mage without Fortify Destruction cost enchants/Fortify Destruction potions. At mid to high levels, he has to sit there and stunlock opponents to death with his high cost, low damage spells. If he runs out of magicka, he's screwed, because of the [censored] magicka regen in battle. Only some looted magicka potions can save him, which he will probably burn through quickly. Robes help migate this slightly, but it does not solve the problem.

So, I pose this question, both the Bethesda and Destruction supporters; why is it right for me to be forced to use alchemy and enchanting in order for me to use one skill?

Thoughts?

Many people are going to agree with this point of view, myself included. Many more are going to point out that many of these threads already exist, and the forum TC's speak about making redundant threads. Try using the search feature in the future, some people get real flame-y about that sort of thing.

Mages shouldn't play like warriors.

Which is not what I want them to do. I want a mage to stay back and sling fireballs or lightning. But right now, it's just a boring stunfest. No fun at all, IMHO.


Sorry for my redundancy.

I think I've boiled my biggest irritation down to the fact that there are no spells that facilitate weakening your target to magic/elements. I have absolutely no objection to having to debuff the person I want to atomize, I object that I need to shoot them with a poisoned arrow/bolt instead of being able to do it with a spell. Instead of being able to play the role of an elemental chessmaster, weakening my foe to the storm at my command, I'm forced into the mantle of some fantastic zookeeper with a traquiliser gun.

Meanwhile, the Illusionist has got every one of their foes ripping their own throats out and the Paladin is tossing orbs of concentrated starstuff. WTF?

I was refurring to you compairing alchemy and enchanting to smithing, and how a mage shouldn't need to take two other skills to get one to work. Even if that was the case, which it hasn't been on my playthroughs, I think a mage should have to sit down and think about their gear and craft it especially for themselves before a battle even starts. I'd go so far to say magic should require much more sitting around before-hand trying to get the spells themselves to work properly in a calm enviroment, let alone a combat situation.

As for stun locking enemies, I never saw the apeal of that so I never used it. I always keep a ward in my off hand to force me to use other stratagies. I'm enjoying the tactical side of the mage, trying to get runes, summons, and illusion spells to work in my favor so the enemy is never attacking me but rather always something else.

And I've seen threads here showing how a pure destruction mage can work just as well being just that and nothing else.

I will support the idea that destruction needs more spells, hell every school needs more spells, but I don't agree with the idea that mages should be able to simply just use destruction and be able to get buy like a warrior blasting through enemies.

You can't even enchant armor,robes, or rings etc with spell damage boosts, like you can with weapons.

In my opinion, Destruction isn't as much weak as it is boring. Unlike combat with weapons, Destruction doesn't stagger, it lacks impact.
Now, there's a perk for that! But unlike Archery's Power Shot, Impact staggers 100% of the time, ONLY when dual cast. This effectively limits the whole dual wield mechanic they added with Skyrim, as you'll want two of the same spells in combat, anyway. Fighting with a sword & spell lacks both blocking, and impact staggering.

There's actually a really easy solution here; change dual casting so that it's always the right-hand spell which is dual cast, regardless of what's in the left! This would greatly reduce the need to go through the cumbersome favorite menu for just a single, staggering blast.